On this day, a fellow monk raised a question, “We occasionally get discouraged while undergoing even the basic austerities that accompany ashram life. How is it that you never complained even while living through extreme inconveniences in that monastery on a mountaintop?”

Radhanath Swami briefly describes his stay at a mountaintop monastery in his memoir, The Journey Home:

For the next six years I resided in an austere monastery on a secluded mountaintop that one had to trudge a three-mile muddy footpath through a forest to reach. The snow-blanketed winters were frigid there and we had no heat. To bathe, we used a rock to break a layer of ice, then dipped in the icy water. Our sanitation system was to climb down a hill with a shovel in hand and busy our waste in the mud.

Every monk was eager to hear the reply. We pressed ourselves closer.

After a brief silence, Radhanath Swami spoke, “If you simply realize what awaits you on the path of Bhakti, you will roll on the ground and cry tears of joy and gratitude. Krishna has given much, much more than what we deserve.”

It was like a father sharing his deepest secrets with his children. We felt blessed.

–Venugopal Acharya 

Radhanath Swami had been here in Mayapur for almost a week, speaking every night to 4,000 people on the glories of Lord Chaitanya. Even though the pandal where he was speaking was only a couple hundred meters from where I was studying, I had not yet had time to spend one full night to listen. I was just so, so busy.

But tonight would be different. I was scheduling my day meticulously to leave school on time. Not only that, I was going to sit up at the very, very front and look at Maharaj’s (Radhanath Swami is affectionately addressed by his followers as Radhanath Maharaj) face the entire time!

Night fell. Despite my planning, I was still at school. Still practicing for my exam.

The lecture had begun. The pandal was so close by the Academy that I could hear the echoes of the microphone as Maharaj spoke. I felt spikes of pain to be so close yet so far. My hopes from the whole day crashed around me.

And yet at the same time, I knew that by being here, studying for Krishna, that was what Radhanath Swami himself would’ve wanted of me.

So I stayed.

Later that night, I was walking home from dinner with my friend Jahnava. We were turning a corner on the road when I saw up ahead a figure in orange, walking by himself, his orange cloth lit up by a streetlight behind him. At first I thought he was a brahmachari.

Then I looked again.

“Oh my, Maharaj!” I exclaimed. I immediately knelt to the dust to offer my respects. Jahnava also knelt.

By the time I had stood up, Maharaj had walked up to both of us, his eyes shining, his face beaming.

“Bhakti lata devi!” he said and looked into my eyes. “I have been yearning to see you.”

I was speechless for a moment. “Maharaj… I… I’ve been yearning to see you!”

He was quiet for a moment, smiling, then he turned to Jahnava and asked, “What is your name?”

“Jahnava,” she replied.

“Beautiful,” he said, holding her gaze for several moments. He turned to me again and was quiet. Then, as if he had all the time in the world, he asked me gently, “How are you?”

“I am very well, Maharaj,” I said, and I was thinking I would just end it there. After all, this was someone who only an hour before had been speaking to 4,000 people. Surely he had other things to do, other people to talk to. But I found no such mood of rush in Maharaj’s face or his voice. He simply wanted to know how I was.

And so I shared with Maharaj a little about Mayapur Academy, and we spoke about how to learn the essence of every ritual we do. He said that he may come to my graduation in March to hand students their diplomas. “I may hand you yours,” Maharaj said with a smile.

Then we folded our palms and bid each other goodbye and goodnight.

Jahnava and I continued to walk home, and my eyes were wide and shining.

The holy land of Mayapur seems to grant wishes.

-Bhakti Lata

This post originally appeared here

Sitting thousands of miles away, I felt excited about the whole affair. I asked him how he felt. “How’s it going Maharaj?” (Admirers often address Radhanath Swami as Radhanath Maharaj)

After a brief silence, I could hear his soft voice, “You know Jagannath Kirtan… do you remember the photo of the cave I lived in Rishikesh, while on my spiritual journey?”

I had worked on the design and layout of his autobiography The Journey Home. I remembered that photo distinctly.

“One side of me wants to go and hide in that cave right now,” said Radhanath Swami.

I felt special. I had heard his heart speak.

It wasn’t for popularity or self-aggrandizement that he was on a book tour. But that was the price he had to pay to reach more people with the wisdom he had gained through his travels.

He shares in his autobiography the reason he wrote the book. It was upon the request of a life-long friend who was on his death bed:

Nobody knew me better that Bhakti Tirtha Swami. He knew the details of my quest and also my hesitation to write about them. One day he clasped my hand, gazed into my eyes and said, “This is not your story. It is a tale about how God led a young boy onto an amazing journey to seek the inner secrets that lie within all of us. Don’t be miserly. Share what has been given to you.” His voice choked up and a tear streaked down his ebony cheek. “Promise me,” he said, “here on my deathbed, that you will write the story.” A few days later, on June 27, 2005, he passed from this world. This book is my attempt to honor his wish.     

–Jagannath Kirtan 

–Vinod Gali

As both the speakers sat on the chairs, Gauranga Dasa, the master of ceremonies, introduced both of them. Then he picked up a coin from his pocket, and revealed how a game of cricket begins. Each cricket match begins with the two captains of the respective teams walking to the centre of the field and tossing a coin. One of them calls out ‘heads’ or ‘tails’, and on winning the toss, the captain decides how the game would begin. “Similarly”, Gauranga Dasa announced, “amongst the two distinguished speakers this evening, who would speak first shall be decided after tossing the coin”. He then turned to both of them and asked, “What would you prefer, heads or tails?” Spontaneously, without blinking an eyelid, Radhanath Swami replied, “Tails of course, I always like to be a tail. I can’t be the heads”. Sitting close by and hearing this instant response, I was amazed. Radhanath Swami often teaches in his classes on the need to be a servant of all, and on the importance of helping others go ahead in life and achieve success. He always shuns materialistic competitive attitude, and this principle is so deeply internalized by him that even during an insignificant coin tossing, he was conscious of being the ‘tail’ or servant of others.

–Venugopal Acharya